Docia Schultz Williams
The History and Mystery of the Menger Hotel
A few years after the Battle of the Alamo, which took place on March 6, 1836,, the small hamlet of San Antonio began to grow rapidly, with the arrival of immigrants from abroad and settlers from all parts of the United States. The government of the New Republic of Texas had sent out word far and wide, that newcomers were welcome and choice land was available for homesteading.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the invitation to come to Texas had reached Germany, where it was of special interest to many young men living in that country. The custom had long been for only the eldest son in a family to inherit money, property, or title, upon the death of the parents. Younger and middle sons just had to fend for themselves, often joining the Prussian army, or signing up for the priesthood. Sometimes the young men would apprentice themselves to a Craftsman in order to learn a trade. Seeking a more prosperous lifestyle, a large number of ambitious young men from Germany began to arrive in the new republic.
William ACHATIUS Menger was one of those young German men who decided to seek his fortune in Texas far removed from his native land.
He was born in Bei HANAU, hessen, Germany on March 15th, 1827. He had become a skilled Cooper, making casks and barrels for the beer and wine industries. He also knew quite a bit. About brewing beer. While Menger had very little money, he was armed with ambition, his tools, and his talent, when he arrived in San Antonio in 1847. He was only 20 years old and only five feet tall. However, This little man had big ambitions, a big heart, and he made a big and lasting impression on the community he had chosen to be his new home. Not much is known of Menger’s very first years in San Antonio. It is known that in 1848 or 1849 he took rooms in a boarding house, which was run by a young German widow, Mary BaumschLEUTER Guenter. Mrs Guenter was known as being a fine cook and housekeeper, and the fact she was German and spoke Williams language must have been especially helpful. Theirs was not an overnight love fare, because it was not until 1851 that William and Mary were married. William had, in the meantime, gone to work making kegs and barrels, and he had opened a small grocery in partnership with a man named Charles DEGENARD. By the time William and Mary were married, the young German had already begun to prosper.
Mary was an industrious and ambitious woman.
She was no stranger to long hours and hard work, so she made an ideal partner for young Menger She and her mother, a 60 year old widow named Anna BaumshelEUTER. Had come from Germany in 1846. Mary, who was born in 1818., was twenty eight years old at the time she arrived in San Antonio. The two women had a difficult and dangerous journey. It had taken six months to cross the Atlantic from Bremen. They had been the only passengers on a schooner loaded with lumber. Caught by a severe storm, the ship’s masts were destroyed in the Gales, and they had sailed to Liverpool, England, for repairs.
The travelers finally made it across the Atlantic, but when they arrived at the Port of Galveston, it took 10 days for the tides to rise high enough for the ship to pass safely over the long sandbars surrounding the port city. By then, the ship was running low on supplies, and the two women, unaccustomed to life at sea, must have been extremely uncomfortable.
From Galveston, Mary and Anna took a little boat up the Buffalo Bayou to the small settlement of Harrisburg,
now absorbed by Houston, where they camped and waited for a train of covered wagons drawn by oxen to arrive. This wagon train was to bring them eventually, to their final destination, San Antonio. It is difficult to imagine in these days of freeways and fast automobiles how it must have been in those times. It took the women six weeks to make the trip that today could easily be made by in three or four hours. There were heavy rains along the way, which created swollen, impassable streams, and the road was nothing but a muddy path through heavy wooded areas. Since there were no bridges, streams had to be forded. One river along the route rose so rapidly that only half of their little wagon train was able to reach the far side. The rest of the party had to wait several days until the water subsided before they could cross and join the rest of the wagon train, which had been impatiently waiting for them. That portion of the train had all the food supplies.
Then, while another river was being forded, the swift current washed the trunks belonging to many of the travelers out of the wagons into the depths of the river, and the poor people barely got out with their lives. There were also a couple of Indian attacks along the way, and several of the people took desperately ill. The trip to San Antonio was a tumultuous beginning in a new country for Mary and her mother.
Just a couple of weeks after the two women arrived in the small village, Anna took to her bed with a high fever.
She was totally exhausted from the long journey and did not have enough strength to recover. Mary also came down with the flu. Anna died, and Mary could not muster enough strength to attend her mother’s hastily arranged funeral and burial. A priest who was just passing through the town en route to Mexico conducted the service. Anna Baumschleuter was buried in the Catholic cemetery located where the Santa Rosa Hospital is now situated, in an unmarked grave. Mary was never able to find the exact location of her mother’s final resting place.
Mary was left to fend for herself in a town where there were very few people who spoke either German or English.
Most of the population of San Antonio was either Mexican or Indian. After Mary recovered from the flu, she went to the little market in the town to buy some provisions. While she was away from her lodgings, someone broke open her small trunk and stole all of her money. She was alone, penniless, and in frail health. Somehow, she survived through the kindness of people she met in the town. What a difficult beginning.
Not much is known about what Mary did from the time of her arrival in 1846, until a couple of years later. One account stated she was in ill health much of the first year she was in San Antonio. She later obtained employment, possibly as a domestic worker. In 1848, she married a man named Emil GUENTHER, who was also a German immigrant.
Only six months after the couple married, Guenther died, leaving Mary widowed and pregnant at the age of 30. Her baby was born in 1849 and died the same year.
We could find no other records and do not know whether the infant was a boy or a girl.
Mary’s husband must have left her some money, because it was only a short time after his death in 1848 that she began to run a boarding house. Will Menger had been living elsewhere during his first year in San Antonio, but he moved into the Widow Guenthers Establishment, on St Mary’s Street near the River, sometime in 1848 or 1849.
It is interesting to note that in a time when women generally married men a great deal older than themselves, William Menger, a 24 year old man, would marry a woman who was nine years his senior.
It has been suggested that Mary was a motherly type and a wonderful Cook, and perhaps this was the attraction at any rate, The couple were married in 1851. Will had a local livery stable. He sent a message to Castroville so his friend the Reverend Claude M dubious, could ride to San Antonio to conduct the nuptials. When the priest rode up, Will was aghast at the broken down nag upon which the minister was mounted. He apologized profusely to the priest, saying. “I am so sorry they did not send you a better horse”. Reverend Dubious, who later became the Bishop of Galveston, replied. “I’m glad you didn’t. If you had, the Indians along the way would have certainly killed me to get my horse”.
Will bought a small piece of property adjacent to the old Alamo Mission, and there he established his small brewery around 1855.
He always said the time to buy land was after heavy rain. If there were no was no standing water, it would be a good buy. The plot he chose was uphill from the San Antonio River and proved to be a good choice. Menger hired a fellow German, Carl Degen. Some historical accounts say this man’s name. Was. As his brewmaster. The little Brewery, which he called the Menger Brewery, was very successful. He made his own kegs, and he had the malt and hops shipped from New York, via water, to the port of Indianola. From there, the supplies were transported by Oxcart to San Antonio.
The Beer Project was an immediate success, but still Will realized he could do better. Many people didn’t want to buy a whole keg or barrel of beer. They would have no way to transport it to their homes. So, he decided to build a small Tavern so people could enjoy a few steins of beer and then go on their way. However, the Menger beer was quite strong. A couple of big mugs would be enough to put a traveler in the precarious position of being unable to saddle a horse and ride it home in the dark. Some of his hard drinking patrons just curled up on the floor or swept the mugs off a table and stretched out there to sleep it off. Will and Mary, his wife, decided something must be done. They built a one story room house adjacent to the brewery and Tavern, so over imbibers could sleep off their drinking bouts. Mary always had plenty of strong black coffee and good food on hand. The Boarding House, built in 1855,, was an immediate success. Hal Mary ran a boarding house, did most of the cooking, and at the same time raised a family is remarkable.
She and Will were loving parents to four children. Their last Mary died when she was only two years old.
It wasn’t long until the mangers decided something better was needed. Settlers from surrounding communities who came to San Antonio to buy their supplies needed a place to stay. There were no elegant hostilities in the town, which was still very much a rough and ready frontier settlement. The Mengers decided to pull out all stops and build a fine hotel adjacent to their popular brewery and Tavern.
In 1858, William hired John M Fries as the architect for the project, and he settled with JH Kampmann. Another fellow German settler, as the general contractor. The two story building of 50 room in, was built of limestone from the quarries located where the sunken gardens in Breckenridge Park are today. And that was the beginning of the Haunted Menger Hotel.
More stories from Docia:
